XXVIII PRIDE
THE DAY WAS BREAKING. I HAD SLEPT POORLY, MY ARMS ON THE table and my head resting on them. The back of my neck was sore and I had a taste of copper in my mouth. Beyond the fog-shrouded esplanade, shadowy figures were getting in and out of a van with its taillights on. Two men were coming toward the café, each with a box on his shoulders. As they were entering, two shots rang out. They’ve finished him off. The cat man woke up, his eyes filled with fear. It’s nothing, grandpa, it’s nothing. Just a salvo. The men started removing bottles of cognac from the boxes and stacking them on the counter.
Other men were approaching, speaking in loud voices. The last man to enter the café, his face drained of color, was the only one who turned to look toward the esplanade. The one who seemed to be in charge was tall, with a small head, a straight nose, and a scar across his cheek. He had a thick mustache and was wearing a shiny jacket and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather. A still-smoking rifle was slung across his shoulder. He had someone open a bottle and downed half of it in one swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. From now on I’ll be able to enjoy what I never had before: a bed ten spans wide so I can sleep lengthwise or crosswise. Whichever way I want. And in the next room I’ll keep myself some captives, two or three rich man’s whores who will pay homage to yours truly with fearful faces and gowns that leave their tiny breasts exposed. He turned to face us: The guy we just dispatched along with his adopted son was my cousin, the owner of all the vineyards in this county. We only intended to kill the old man, but the son wanted to hug his father one last time, so we sent them both to heaven in an eternal embrace.
The man in charge sat down at our table, and after staring at it with a vacant look for a few moments, he gave the cat a kick, sending it tumbling toward the door. I am the heir. And he shouted: A bottle! And glasses! One of the men pointed to the floor. There are no glasses. The man in charge looked at the old man. Instead of parading about with that stuffed animal that’s already given you everything it had, you’d be better off if you came with us and cleaned our rifles, that goes for you too, kid! The barrel of my rifle is always hot and I wouldn’t want it cooling off before this war is won. The cat man laughed so hard he seemed about to break, and everyone stopped drinking to stare at him, and then the cat man said that none of them were their father’s sons. A scrawny man wearing a blue shirt and a red scarf around his neck lunged toward him, brandishing a bottle, threatening to smash it over his head if he repeated such nonsense. It’s not me, it’s that boy who said so; according to him, parents merely create a child’s flesh and bones and with its first cry, the infant is infused with a soul that has been waiting for that moment. The tallest man in the group gave me a cold stare: Show us the soul! I stood up, charged into the scrawny man, who was blocking my way, and bolted out of there, tripping on the cat and sending it flying onto the countertop. The cat man meowed and meowed. Outside the fog had thickened, and perhaps that is why they didn’t kill me, though they shot at me like maniacs.
XXIX THE HERMIT
I SAW HIM AT ONCE, THE MAN TILLING THE FIELD. AND HE SAW me, for, shading his eyes with his hand and shouting loudly, he asked if I was headed to the chapel. Without giving me a chance to respond, he explained that the chapel was farther up, above the holm-oak forest, behind a thicket of strawberry trees and heather. Treading on clods of turned earth, he moved closer, and when he was standing next to me, he pushed his cap back. He’s not like the rest of us. Who? I asked. Aren’t you on your way to see the hermit? No. Well, you should pay him a visit. He’s the grandest man on this earth. A giant. Not even the most angelic of angels can compare to him. His eyes were already filled with God when he arrived in these parts, he already breathed the breath of God. . The chapel was in ruins, the ceiling had caved in, and two of the walls were gone. It was a den of serpents and lizards. The previous hermit had died of old age years ago. And this man, of whom I can only say that he is a saint, arrived here in a wretched state, skin and bones, barely able to stand, but with his sight set on the heavens. I went about helping him at once: Though I never had much of anything to spare, I took him whatever I could. . a sliver of lard, a crust of bread, even if it meant I would have little to feed the chickens that night. Sometimes a few apples, sometimes a pot of honey. One day, without daring to look at me, the hermit told me he had prayed that God would reward me for the good I was doing him, and apparently God had conveyed to him the message that I would be admitted into His saintly glory on the day I breathed my last. And I live in peace. Ever since then, my vegetable garden has been the lushest, without even watering it, really, because as soon as it is thirsty the sky sends down rain. I harvest more grapes than ever. The earth is soft and black. And, as I work, my spirit lifts heavenward toward the blue and the clouds.
A few days after the saintly man’s arrival, he began to gather stones: A wall was going up. He placed one of the stones — the longest and narrowest, which had been half buried near the Pinetell springs — crosswise above the portal, to serve as a lintel. And he covered it all with brick tiles which he had limped over to the abandoned farmhouse to collect. When he had completed work on the chapel, he built an altar from the trunk of an oak tree that had been felled by lightning; he dragged it to the site with a chain I lent him. And on that altar, where he says Mass every day at dawn, he placed a cross like the cross our Savior died on, made from four different kinds of wood: palm, cypress, olive, and cedar. On one side of the cross he keeps a crown of brambles and on the other, three rusted nails held together with a wire, their heads flattened. The Mass he says is unlike most: It seems that an angel — always the same one — serves as his altar boy and blows to enlarge the chapel, sheathing it with a glass veil until it becomes a cathedral. The day he dies, birds will usher him to the heavens — up, up — some pulling, others pushing. . and they will lay him on a shipcloud wreathed in a pearly light. It’ll do you good to see him. They say we are at war, that brothers are killing brothers, but here the God of grass and trees, sky and fog, water and rock continues to bless tender-hearted men. Go to the chapel. Go.